Wed, Jul 30 2014
TOKYO, July 30 (Reuters) – A Japanese school teachers’ pension fund will review its asset allocation with a view to increasing holdings in Japanese shares as it prepares to integrate with the mammoth Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the fund’s officials said.
The Promotion of Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, which manages 3.8 trillion yen ($37.22 billion) of assets, is due to be integrated with the GPIF in October next year.
"Based on common sense, I suspect the GPIF’s model portfolio will become our model portfolio," said Masayuki Tashiro, general manager of asset management at the pension fund.
GPIF’s investment committee has said the $1.25 trillion-GPIF could raise its investment in stocks to 20 percent from the current 12 percent target.
As of March, the teachers’ pension fund held 382.9 billion yen of Japanese stocks, or 10 percent of the total assets.
The funds’ officials said they did not buy Japanese shares in April-June. However, sources told Reuters earlier that the fund and two other semi-public pension funds were buying Japanese shares since May.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pushing for Japanese public and semi-public pension funds to boost stock investment.
Proponents say Japanese pension funds invest too heavily in bonds and need to shift funds to stocks as Japan is expected to emerge from a long phase of deflation. Critics suspect the real motive is to help lift share prices.